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The Old Wives' Tale 

A Play 



BY 

GEORGE PEELE 

As presented at Middlebury College in igii 

Edited with Notes and an Introduction 
BY 

FRANK W. CADY, A.M., B.Litt. (Oxon) 







BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 

TORONTO: THE COPP, CLARK CO., LIMITED 



Introduction and Stage Directions 
Copyright, 19 i6, by Richard G. Badger 



All Rights Reserved 






0CT-"1? !9!6 



Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



6. to 



aA438808 



INTRODUCTION 

Of the plays of George Peek, The Old Wives* 
Tale was long in least repute. Critics looked at 
it askance because they failed to realize its purpose, 
and so felt it to be a jumble of all sorts of things 
of little virtue and less interest. The critic is at 
home with the conventional, and this play is in 
some respects unconventional. It was not to be 
subjected to the usual standards of judgment, and 
so the critic passed it over, after expressing mild 
surprise that Milton should have honored so feeble 
a thing by making it the source of the story told in 
Comus. And yet the chief devices used in con- 
structing the Tale are strikingly conventional; it is 
only in sources and purpose that Peele shows his 
originality. 

The thing which distinguishes Elizabethan drama 
from other dramatic types is the control of the 
story by the characters. In classic drama once the 
story is decided 'upon the characters and their places 
in it are fixed. Not so in Elizabethan. It had, 
strictly speaking, no story unity. The major story 
of the plot was hardly more than a starting point 
in getting together a group of characters typical in 
a general way of the society of the times and form- 
ing the center of unity around wjiich action, spec- 
3 



4 INTRODUCTION 

tacle, and dialogue were grouped. Of such a play 
the Merchant of Venice is a typical example. The 
major story is the story of Portia and Bassanio. 
To it naturally is added Antonio's experience with 
Shylock. But Shylock has a daughter and she a 
lover, and Tubal is Shylock's closest friend, and 
Portia has other suitors besides Bassanio, and 
Launcelot Gobbo has some uncertainty whom he 
shall serve. So it goes, here a little and there a 
little added to the original story, until at the end 
we have before us a group of people varied and yet 
homogeneous, each with his own life story inter- 
woven inextricably with those of the others. The 
unity, however, is found in the homogeneous group 
of characters and not in the diverse stories of their 
lives. It is in the characters, also, that the realism 
of The Merchant of Venice shows itself. They it 
is that give the atmosphere of plausibility to a most 
improbable series of events. Stage tradition, in- 
herited from medieval times, took no thought of 
temporal or spatial perspective. The people in 
The Merchant of Venice are English men and 
women transported to Venice for the story's sake. 
The story is extravagant and absurd. It is ac- 
cepted without question because the people whose 
it is are real and intensely alive. The great secret 
of Shakespeare's skill in character portrayal was 
his genius; but the traditional habit of his theater 
to make characters English and realistic and to 
subordinate story to the presentation of a homoge- 



INTRODUCTION 5 

neous social group gave him his magnificent oppor- 
tunity. He came in the fullness of time. 

It is true, however, that by the time Shakespeare 
wrote his comedies there was ready for him a story 
formula which had been found especially effective 
in the presentation of this homogeneous character 
group. To it he added, certainly, but he did not 
alter it materially, because his interest was primar- 
ily in the group of characters and the story was 
scarcely more than a vehicle of expression. In fol- 
lowing this formula he made up his plot from two 
or three stories. There was a story dealing with 
people of the better class. As was normal in his 
day it was from the point of view of these people 
that the social group was handled. Beside this 
ran another story about characters whose social 
rank was low, tradesmen, or servants, or social 
outcasts. The chief story was always borrowed. 
The minor story might be borrowed or original. 
But it always seems to grow out of an attempt to 
give social orientation to the people in the main 
story through an enlargement of the background 
of their life by an original treatment of the minor 
characters in the story. Often by the sheer force 
of its originality and consequent realism it usurped 
the interest of the main story and ran away with 
the play. However that might be, the action of 
these stories was always skillfully interrelated by 
the use of character or situation in precisely the 
same way that the life stories of any homogeneous 



6 INTRODUCTION 

group of men and women would be related. Often, 
indeed, Shakespeare invented a third story, or group 
of episodes, to bind the other two together, as in 
Midsummer-night's Dream, where the fairies are 
so used, or the Jessica-Lorenzo episodes in The 
Merchant of Venice, or Dogberry and the Watch 
in Much Ado. But the total effect was to give 
the impression of a cross-section of Elizabethan so- 
ciety, each group intent upon its own purposes, but 
in accomplishing them plausibly assisting the pur- 
poses of the other groups. The unity lay not in 
the story, but in the homogeneity of the group of 
characters. This is not the place to discuss further 
Shakespeare's artistic skill in presenting this homo- 
geneous group. The point here to be made is that 
Peele, with a skill not equaling Shakespeare's, is 
using the same formula. It is in this respect that 
the play is a forerunner of greater things. 

The play is a fairy story. In order to get his 
audience into the mood he desires, Peele makes use 
of that perfectly conventional Elizabethan device, 
the induction. In it Madge begins to tell the fairy 
tale, when the actors themselves break in upon the 
scene and the action is at once under way, like a 
dream come true. Madge in the induction and 
throughout the play performs a necessary and im- 
portant service in making Peek's purpose plain 
and in keeping it before the audience; but at the 
start she is well content to see others enact her 
story for her. When it is well under way it is 



INTRODUCTION 7 

seen to consist of at least two stones. Each of 
these centers about a double quest. In the main 
story two brothers are searching for their sister 
who has been spirited away by a sorcerer. The 
other part of the double quest in this main story 
is taken up by a lover of the sister who comes 
seeking her. In the minor story two crude fellows 
aping the chivalry of their betters enter upon a 
quest for one whom we are allowed to believe is 
the same young woman; but they are satisfied each 
with one of the two daughters of Lampriscus, a 
villager, whose quest for husbands for his daugh- 
ters is the second part of the minor story. All of 
these quests are bound together by the presence in 
the plot of the story of Erestus, who is the prophet 
of good, and foretells to each seeker what he may 
hope from his quest. Erestus himself is under 
the power of the sorcerer in the play who has stolen 
his lady and driven her mad. Here we have the 
story of those in higher walks of life and that of 
those in the lower interrelated in many ways and 
bound together by a third story acting as a cement 
between the other two. In this respect it does not 
differ from the practice of Shakespeare himself. 

Peele is, however, much more skillful in his use 
of the induction than in his use of the formula for 
romantic comedy. In fact, without the induction 
the story would hardly hang together, because the 
group of characters does not have quite the homo- 
geneity Shakespeare succeeded in imparting to his 



8 INTRODUCTION 

groups, and without which it is difficult to give a 
romantic comedy the impression of unity. And 
yet the matter of the story is but a fairy tale, and 
Madge so successfully introduced its outline into 
her induction that she has given it an impression 
of unity it otherwise would not have. 

It is perfectly true, one must confess, that these 
two major conventionalities would of themselves 
give The Old Wives' Tale no more than a historic 
interest were it not for two matters in which Peele 
showed more originality^ In the first place, his 
choice of sources for the situations in the play was 
entirely original. Instead of turning to the con- 
ventional sources in the romantic literature and 
drama of the time, Peele went to the fairy lore of 
his own land, the romance of the folk, and put into 
his play the versions of familiar tales which he had 
himself without doubt heard in childhood. In the 
second place, by the use he makes of the induction, 
he not only emphasizes in the minds of the audience 
the sources of the play, but reminds them that the 
outlook upon life which he wishes them to take in 
viewing it is not that of the court and its sophistica- 
tion, but that of people like Madge and her com- 
panions. Not alone original in his sources, he was 
also original in the point of view from which he 
got his outlook upon life in the play. 

Bound up in the conventional formula for ro- 
mantic comedy as used by Shakespeare there was 
the conventional point of view characteristic of the 



INTRODUCTION 9 

times. Society did not center, as it does to-day, in 
the ubiquitous working-man. Elizabethan society 
existed for the upper classes. For this reason the 
audience was asked by the playwright of the time 
to identify itself in sympathetic point of view with 
the characters who take part in the central roman- 
tic story of the play. In Midsummer-night's Dream, 
for instance, we see everything from the viewpoint 
of the lovers and their set. That the crew of Bot- 
tom are thus seen is evident from the last act. Bot- 
tom is funny to the spectators, but to himself he is 
profoundly serious. How definitely the point of 
view of the play is that of the upper classes is ap- 
parent when one attempts to imagine the events 
from Bottom's viewpoint. A play viewing Iffe 
from that angle would, it might be said, be possi- 
ble only in this modern day. These plays were 
written at a time when society had not become 
self-conscious and before sociology had cast its 
sombre shadow across men's lives. 

So it is that Peele dared to do the unconven- 
tional and original thing when he asked his audi- 
ence to identify itself for this play with Madge and 
her companions and not with the lost maiden and 
those in quest of her; to sit, that is, once more 
around the 'fireplace as they had done in their far- 
distant childhood, and see again through the narra- 
tive of an old and withered crone, as once they 
had, the romances of fairy-land unfolded before 
them. In its final effect Peele has asked us to look 



lo INTRODUCTION 

again at the world from the point of view of the 
child, as Barrie has done for this age in Peter Pan. 
And in making this request he has revealed his 
purpose in the play. The spectator's mind is im- 
m_ediately divided against itself. The judgment of 
the child in him is made severely critical of the 
sophistication of the adult and, in this way, a dou- 
ble criticism of contrast is, as it were, set into 
action concerning the matters treated within the 
play, s Peele makes of his fairy stories a dramatic 
criticism of the romantic chivalry of the day. By 
establishing this original viewpoint of his in the 
minds of the spectators he makes this criticism two- 
edged. Not alone are the characters of the minor 
plot in their exaggeration a satire upon the roman- 
tic chivalry soberly treated in the main plot. That 
main plot itself exhibits a chivalry exaggerated and 
yet in many subtle ways debased by Madge's plebe- 
ian imagination. The chivalry of courtiers must 
have undergone a marked change in spirit and in 
deeds when seen from the point of view of the 
child who is listening to a story told by a woman 
like her. To set up this viewpoint is just what 
Peele successfully attempts in this play. This is 
what was meant by Professor Gummere when he 
said: "He (Peele) was the first to blend romantic 
drama with a realism which turns romance back 
upon itself, and produces the comedy of subcon- 
scious humor." For we are constantly comparing 
the point of view which Peele brings to the fore- 



INTRODUCTION ii 

ground by his realistic appeal to us to be children 
once more, with the usual point of view subcon- 
sciously asserting itself as we see the play or read it. 

The same point of view is carefully maintained 
in the presentation of the characters. That these 
are conventional types is at once apparent. But 
they are seen very largely through the eyes of 
Madge. There is a colourless regularity about the 
people in the major story which reflects her opinion 
of them as proper in their place, but uninteresting. 
Huanebango, of course, is a modification of the 
conventional braggart soldier; but in the eyes of 
Madge he is the only genuine and lively exponent 
of true chivalry. The rustics become invested with 
a more sympathetic interest because she is one of 
them; and Erestus, the spirit of good within the 
play, is the only one of the characters from the 
upper classes who has her undivided sympathy and 
respect. 

To a modern audience, it is true, both the so- 
ciety of that day and the stage practice have be- 
come traditional and even obsolete. The plays of 
that time have become nothing but archaisms of 
only historical interest unless they happen to pre- 
sent some matter of present human interest. Shake- 
speare is perennial, for instance, in two respects, 
his poetry and his characterization. His stage prac- 
tice has become obsolete; his point of view toward 
society has perished with the society that gave it 
birth; but his people live to us in spite of this, and 



12 INTRODUCTION 

his poetry speaks to the heart of man In every age. 
The question in regard to The Old Wives' Tale is, 
What is there in the play of present human interest 
which makes worth while a modern presentation? 
It probably does not lie in poetry or characteriza- 
tion. It lies, rather, in the very things in which 
Peele showed his originality: the perennial child- 
interest in fairy-tale to which he appealed in his 
choice of sources, and the perennial interest to an 
adult in returning to look upon life through the 
eyes of a child. The fast flocking memories of 
childhood carried the story in Peele's day and 
interpreted its humor and satire as he wished it 
to be interpreted. So they do to-day, in spite of 
obsolete stage conventions and social forms. Iii 
appealing to the perennial interest in fairy stories, 
Peele was assuring to himself an interested audience 
as long as the old tales continued to be the property 
of the children of the race. 

Upon looking at the matter from this point of 
view, it becomes evident at once that in any modern 
presentation of the play the fairy element is the 
one which needs to be emphasized. The producer 
has before him in the large three possibilities: to 
reproduce, as far as possible, the Elizabethan stage 
and setting; to make an out-door presentation; or 
to set the play upon a modern picture stage with all 
the scenic accessories that are to-day available. If 
the present text is based upon the first of the three 
possibilities, it is not because the producers failed 



INTRODUCTION 13 

to see how effective the other methods of presenta- 
tion might be made, but because to them at that 
time the first seemed the most feasible. 

No large liberties were taken with the text aside 
from the shifting of one scene. A fairy dance ac- 
companied by song was made the prologue to the 
play. Again within the induction the fairies danced 
when the song "When as the rye" was sung; and 
at the end a final fairy dance preceded the epilogue, 
which was a modern addition to the play. Per- 
haps the most questionable innovation was found in 
having "The Mad Maid's Song," by Robert Her- 
rick, sung while Venelia was upon the stage. In 
addition to these things, fairies were made to open 
and shut the curtains, place and remove properties, 
and perform other incidental functions tending to 
keep their activities in mind. The details of these 
devices are revealed in the text, in which every 
change from the original form is carefully indicated. 
A word should, perhaps, be said about the stage. 
Its construction is an easy matter, requiring a very 
moderate outlay. The only essentials are an open 
front stage and a back stage, before which a curtain 
is hung. There should be two entrances to the 
open front stage, one on either side of the curtain 
hung before the back stage. The entrances to the 
back stage can be arranged to suit the convenience 
of the play which is to be given. For instance, it 
was found that the fireplace made an effective en- 
trance and exit for the characters in Madge's in- 



14 INTRODUCTION 

terrupted tale. Properties are few and solid. They 
may be disposed to suit the conception of the set- 
ting which is being worked out by the producers. 
The modified stage used at the production of which 
this edition is the outcome is shown in the frontis- 
piece. It is much more elaborate than is needed, 
much larger in many ways; though it is far more 
simple than would be any setting of the play upon 
a modern stage. Its general form was taken from 
a cut of the ground plan of the Blackfriar's drawn 
by Professor C. F. Wallace for an article in the 
Century for September, 19 lO. But the arrange- 
ment of properties and of exits and entrances, other 
than the two exposed to the audience, was entirely 
to suit the convenience of this production. 

The conception of the stage held by Elizabethan 
playwrights was in essence very simple. They were 
accustomed to think of the broad open front stage 
as anywhere, suiting the scene to be represented. 
Sometimes it took its locality from settings ex- 
posed upon the back stage when the curtain was 
withdrawn. When the curtain was closed it was 
generally simply an open place. The space behind 
the curtain, the back stage, was always a definite 
locality, though that might change as the scenes 
changed. With this in mind, it was necessary to 
place the house of Clunch, the magic well, and the 
cell of Sacrapant behind the curtain. The cross 
where three roads met and the mound of earth witR 
the magic glass would as necessarily be on the open 



INTRODUCTION 15 

stage. At the beginning of the play the open stage 
is a wood into which the three vagabonds enter, 
and after Madge is interrupted in her story, that 
same open stage becomes the fairy-land where all 
these strange wonders happen. The details are 
presented in the stage directions. In the manner 
thus briefly indicated was effected the first essential 
detail in presenting Peele's point of view, an ade- 
quate stage setting. 

And yet, although the simplicity of the Eliza- 
bethan stage has its charm, it also has its limita- 
tions. The Old Wives' Tale is a true out-doors 
play. It calls for the witchery of moonlight to 
help make its improbabilities seem probable. This 
the bare stage could not give nor does the poetry 
of the play help in the least to bring the illusion 
of Fairyland as does that of The Midsummer- 
nighfs Dream. Next best would be a modern set- 
ting in which the art of the stage manager could 
most effectively supplement the art of the poet. 
But, after all, if the note that is timeless in the 
play, the note of Fairyland, the note of father and 
mother looking again at life through the eyes of 
their children — if that note is caught and held 
throughout, even the strangeness of the antique 
stage, in its novelty and intimacy with the audi- 
ence, adds to the interest and in some subtle man- 
ner increases the beauty of the presentation. Nor 
do the changes in the play appear as anachronisms 
so long as they are in harmony with this central 



i6 INTRODUCTION 

touch of perennial interest. Robert Herrick may 
have written after Peek's play was forgotten; but 
his note w^as the note struck by that part of th^ 
play in which his song is used; and it would be 
far from the thought of any Elizabethan to deny 
the right to any one to borrow where he could to 
enhance the dramatic value of his play. They 
stood not upon the order of their stealing, but stole 
at once, where it was a question of the play's success. 

These are the matters of importance in connec- 
tion with adapting the play to a modern audience. 
A word may not be amiss about the various charac- 
ters. The most difficult acting parts are those of 
the onlookers, Madge and her companions, and yet 
upon them very largely rests the business of hold- 
ing the audience to Peele's point of view. The 
stage directions have been made to indicate their 
business in a general way; but detail must of neces- 
sity be left to individual initiative. The characters 
of the main story are rather colourless, but call for 
careful work in the presentation. Erestus is espe- 
cially effective. Huanebango and Corebus, with 
their ladies, beggar description in any adequate 
presentation ; the low comedy possibilities of the four 
are almost limitless. Jack and Sacrapant are foils 
to each other in dignity and frolicsomeness. It is 
not intended, so it seems, that the ghost of Jack 
shall be presented as invisible. He is simply unseen 
by the other actors at the right times. 

And so the modern version of the play has grown 



INTRODUCTION 17 

out of the old through an attempt to make it cer- 
tain that the modern audience would catch the fairy 
spirit which pervades it. The elaborate stage direc- 
tions, so unlike the antique practice, have been in- 
serted that those who read and see not may possi- 
bly get some of that same spirit as they read. The 
Old Wives' Tale is not a great tale, but it is a 
pleasant one. The deeds it chronicles are not the 
deeds of every day, but those of a childlike fancy. 
The people whom it brings to life are creatures of 
every day seen through the glorifying eyes of those 
whose minds are simple. It is the perennial com- 
ment of childhood upon life that gives the play 
its charm. 

It is impossible and unwise to go into more detail 
out of personal experience in the presentation of 
the play. Mr. Archibald Henderson has truly sug- 
gested that stage and audience, traditions and con- 
ventions are but tools in the hands of a playwright 
of genius, which he uses to create a work of art. 
But it is true that when once his work of art is 
created it is in turn the tool of producer and actor 
through which they present their interpretation of 
the life it expresses. For this reason there is only one 
royal rule for success. Make the play your own 
until it masters you and then build into its pro- 
duction its mastery over your soul. If you are an 
artist you will not be satisfied until you make 
people see the play through your eyes. By that 
your artistic measure must be taken. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS 

Sacrapant 

First Brother, named Calypha 

Second Brother, named Thelea 

eumenides 

Erestus 

Lampriscus 

huanebango 

COREBUS 
WiGGEN 

Churchwarden 
Sexton 
Ghost of Jack 

Delia, sister to Calypha and Thelea 

--Venelia, betrothed to Erestus . 
-^ Zantippa, daughter /o Lampriscus 
Celanta, daughter to Lampriscus 
Hostess 
Antic 
Frolic 
Fantastic 
Clunch, a smith 
Madge, his wife 
Friar 
Furies 
Epilogue 
Harvestmen and Women, Fairies, etc. 



? 






OLD WIVES' TALE 






i 



OLD WIVES' TALE 

[^The open stage, as of the Blackfriars Theater 
in Elizabethan London. Back center a curtain with 
entrances each side. Right front {as seen by the 
audience) a cross where three roads are supposed 
to meet, heft front a mound of earth. To right 
of cross and left of mound of earth, stools for spec- 
tators. Over each entrance, legends: over the left. 
The Road by the Forge of Clunch; over the right. 
The Road to the House of Lampriscus ; by each. 
To Fairyland. 

Off stage are heard voices singing a song. The 
Fairy Ring, and from either entrance burst in fairies 
coming to dance upon the green. They are clad in 
all the hues of spring and ripple with gladness as 
they dance. At the end they go out as they came in. 

Enter, left. Antic, Fantastic, and Frolic, three 
knights of the weary way in tattered raiment; 
Frolic, weary and footsore; Fantastic, steeped in 
melancholy and shivering between fear and cold; 
Antic, famished, and hindered in utterance by a 
stammering tongue. They have lost their way in 
the forest and are in abject fear.] ^ 

* Throughout, the presence of brackets indicates mat- 
ter inserted in the present text. 

19 



20 OLD WIVES' TALE 

Ant. How now, fellow Frolic! what, alP 
amort? doth this sadness become thy madness? 
What though we have lost our way in the woods? 
yet never hang the head as though thou hadst no 
hope to live till to-morrow; for Fantastic and I 
will warrant thy life to-night for twenty in the 
hundred. 

Fro. Antic, and Fantastic, as I am frolic 
franion,^ never in all my life was I so dead slain. 
What, to lose our way in the wood, without either 
fire or candle, so uncomfortable? O coelum! O 
terra! O marial O Neptune! 

Fan. Why makes thou it so strange, seeing 
Cupid hath led our young master to the fair lady, 
and she is the only saint that he hath sworn to 
serve ? 

Fro. What resteth, then, but we commit him 
to his saint, and each of us take his stand up in a 
tree, and sing out our ill fortune to the tune of 
**0 man in desperation"? 

Ant. Desperately spoken, fellow Frolic, in the 
dark: but seeing it falls out thus, let us rehearse 
the old proverb: 

"Three merry men, and three merry men. 
And three merry men be wx; 
I in the wood, and thou on the ground, 
And Jack sleeps in the tree." 

[^ dog harks without.] 

* Dejected. 

'A gay, carefree fellow. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 21 

Fan. Hush ! a dog in the wood, or a wooden ^ 
dog! O comfortable hearing! I had even as lief 
the chamberlain of the White Horse had called me 
up to bed. 

Fro. Either hath this trotting cur gone out of 
his circuit, or else are we near some village, which 
should not be far off, for I perceive the glimmer- 
ing of a glow-worm, a candle, or a cat's eye, my 
life for a halfpenny! 

[Enter, left, Clunch, the aged smith, returning 
weary from his day's work, with lantern in his hand. 
He limps slightly with the years and wears the 
leathern apron of his trade. Not too cordial a man 
is this weary smith, though he still knows the uses 
of hospitality.^^ 

In the name of my own father, be thou ox or ass 
that appearest, tell us what thou art. 

Clunch. What am I! why, I am Clunch, the 
smith. What are you ? what make you in my terri- 
tories at this time of the night? 

Ant. What do we make, dost thou ask? why, 
we make faces for fear. 

Fro. And, in faith, sir, unless your hospitality 
do relieve us, we are like to wander, with a sor- 
rowful heigh-ho, among the owlets and hobgoblins 
of the forest. Good Vulcan, for Cupid's sake that 
hath cozened us all, befriend us as thou mayst; 
and command us howsoever, wheresoever, whenso- 
ever, in whatsoever, for ever and ever. 
^Wooden — mad. Note the pun. 



22 OLD WIVES' TALE 

Clunch. Well, masters, it seems to me you 
have lost your way in the wood: in consideration 
whereof, if you will go with Clunch to his cottage, 
you shall have house-room and a good fire to sit 
by, although we have no bedding to put you in. 

Fan. O blessed smith.^ 

Ant. O bountiful Clunch!^ 

Clunch. For your further entertainment, it 
shall be as it may be, so and so. [The dog barks 
within.^ Hark! this is Ball, my dog, that bids 
you all welcome in his own language: come, take 
heed for stumbling on the threshold. — Open door, 
Madge; take in guests. 

[The curtains are opened by two fairies who van- 
ish. On the right is revealed the house of Clunch 
and Madge^ with cheery fire-place, a comfortable 
settle, a table set with meager fare, a few stools, etc. 
On the left is a well, with step and sweep. Center 
is the Cell of Sacrapant behind closed curtains. 
Above is the railing of a balcony. Madge, the wife 
of Clunch, is standing center. She is an old, bent 
woman, but as cheery as the blaze of her own fire, 
and whole-hearted in welcoming the guests Clunch 
brings.^ 

Madge. Welcome, Clunch, and good fellows 
all, that come with my good-man: for my good- 
man's sake, come on, sit down: here is a piece of 
cheese, and a pudding of my own making. 

Ant. Thanks, gammer. [He begins to eat 

^In the original text these are one speech spoken hy All. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 23 

hastily.] A good example for the wives of our 
town. 

Fro. Gammer, thou and thy good-man sit lov- 
ingly together; we come to chat, and not to eat. 

Clunch. Well, masters, if you will eat noth- 
ing, take away. [Madge removes food. Antic' 
grievously disappointed.] Come, what do we to 
pass away the time? [To Madge.] Lay a crab 
in the fire to roast for lamb's wool.^ What, shall 
we have a game at trump^ or ruff^ to drive away 
the time? How say you? 

Fan. This smith leads a life as merry as a king 
with Madge, his wife. Sirrah Frolic, I am sure 
thou art not without some [tale]^ or other! no 
doubt but Clunch can bear his part. 

Fro. Else think you me ill brought up: so set 
to it when you will. 

[Here they are astonished by the music of a song 
in the distance of which these are the words.] 

SONG 

Whenas the rye reach to the chin. 

And chopcherry, chopcherry ripe within, 

Strawberries swimming in the cream. 

And school-boys playing in the stream ; 

Then, O then, O then, O my true-love said, 

Till that time come again 

She could not live a maid. 

*A drink of ale and of crab-apples roasted. 
^ Common card games. 
'"Round" in the original. 



24 OLD WIVES' TALE 

[Enter on either side the fairies again.'\ 
[Fro. Marry, what are these? I fear me, 
Clunch, there is some witchery about, or these be 
fairies come to dance upon the green.] 
[The fairies after a dance go out.^ 

Ant. This sport does well [an it were not 
sorcery] ; but methinks, gammer, a merry winter's 
tale would drive away the time trimly: come, I 
am sure you are not without a score. 

Fan. Ffaith, gammer, a tale of an hour long 
were as good as an hour's sleep. 

Fro. Look you, gammer, of the giant and the 
king's daughter, and I know not what: I have seen 
the day, when I was a little one, you might have 
drawn me a mile after you with such a discourse. 

Madge. Well, since you be so importunate, my 
good-man shall fill the pot and get him to bed. [As 
she is speaking Clunch goes to the well for water 
and therewith fills the pot upon the fire.~\ They 
that ply their work must keep good hours: one of 
you go lie with him; he is a clean-skinned man, I 
tell you, without either spavin or windgall: so I 
am content to drive away the time with an old 
wives' winter's tale. 

Fan. No better hay in Devonshire ; o' my word, 
gammer, I'll be one of your audience. 

Fro. And I another, that's flat. 

Ant. Then must I to bed with the good-man. — 
Bona nox, gammer. — Good night, Frolic. 

Clunch. Come on, my lad, thou shalt take thy 



OLD WIVES' TALE 25 

unnatural rest with me. [Exit with Antic] 

Fro. Yet this vantage shall we have of them in 
the morning, to be ready at the sight thereof 
extempore. 

[Frolic and Fantastic remove the table. Madge 
places her stool near the settle and stirs the fire. 
As the old wife begins her tale she sits on the settle 
next Frolic, who is by the fire. Fantastic is on a 
stool at her right. All during the story Frolic, 
though interested, affects disdain while Fantastic 
hears it out with pricked-up, eager ears.] 

Madge. Now this bargain, my masters, must I 
make with you, that you will say hum and ha to 
my tale, so shall I know you are awake. 

Both. Content, gammer, that will we do. — 

Madge. Once upon a time, there was a king, or 
a lord, or a duke, that had a fair daughter, the 
fairest that ever was; as white as snow and as red 
as blood: and once upon a time his daughter was 
stolen away: and he sent all his men to seek out 
his daughter; and he sent so long, that he sent all 
his men out of his land. 

Fro. Who drest his dinner, then? 

Madge. Nay, either hear my tale, or turn tail. 

Fan. Well said! on with your tale, gammer. 

Madge. O Lord, I quite forgot! there was a 
conjurer, and this conjurer could do anything, and 
he turned himself into a great dragon, and carried 
the king's daughter away in his mouth to a castle 
that he made of stone; and there he kept her I 



/-". 



26 OLD WIVES' TALE 

know not how long, till at last all the king's men 
went out so long that her two brothers went to 
seek her. O, I forget! she (he, I would say) 
turned a proper young man to a bear in the night, 
and a man in the day, and keeps by a cross that 
parts three several ways; and he made his lady 
run mad, — Ods me bones, who comes here? 

[Enter^ fireplace^ the two brothers. Two in one, 
or one in two, are these who venture after their 
sister into this maze of sorcery. As proper young 
gentlemen as one would see in summers day, but 
simple-minded and somewhat colorless withal, yet 
well suited and with weapons at their sides. As 
they enter the three about the fire are seen to nod 
their understanding of the tale.~\ 

Fro. Soft, gammer, here some come to tell your 
tale for you. 

Fan. Let them alone; let us hear what they 
will say.^ 

First Bro. Upon these chalky cliffs of Albion 
We are arrived now with tedious toil; 
And compassing the wide world round about, 
To seek our sister, to seek fair Delia forth, 
Yet cannot we so much as hear of her. 

[Enter, fireplace, Erestus, to the cross, unseen 
by the two brothers, an old man, half wizard and 
half friar, in gown of grey with rosary and crucifix. 
He walks head down and counts his beads and begs 
an alms, while Madge points him out to her com- 

*This closes the induction. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 27 

panions; and yet he is the power for good within 
the play, who puts to naught the plans of sorcery. 
Fittingly he stands by the cross where meet three 
ways to warn the passers-by against the sorcerer.^ 

Second Bro. O fortune cruel, cruel and unkind ! 
Unkind in that we cannot find our sister, 
Our sister, hapless in her cruel chance. — 

[He sees Erestus.] 
Soft! who have we here? 

First Bro. Now, father, God be your speed! 
what do you gather there? 

Erest. Hips and haws, and sticks and straws, 
and things that I gather on the ground, my son. 

First Bro. Hips and haws, and sticks and 
straws! why, is that all your food, father? 

Erest. Yea, son. 

Second Bro. Father, here is an alms-penny for 
me; and if I speed in that I go for, I will give thee 
as good a gown of grey as ever thou didst wear. 

First Bro. And, father, here is another alms- 
penny for me; and if I speed in my journey, I will 
give thee a palmer's staff of ivory, and a scallop- 
shell of beaten gold. 

Erest. Was she fair? 

Second Bro. Ay, the fairest for white, and the 
purest for red, as the blood of the deer, or the driven 
snow. 

Erest. Then hark well, and mark well, my old 
spell : 
Be not afraid of every stranger; 



28 OLD WIVES' TALE ^ 

[Frolic crosses himself, the others show fear.] 
Start not aside at every danger; 
Things that seem are not the same; 
Blow a blast at every flame; 
For v^^hen one flame of fire goes out, 
Then come your washes well about: 
If any ask who told you this good, 
Say, the white bear of England's wood. 

First Bro. Brother, heard you not what the 
old man said? 
Be not afraid of every stranger; 
Start not aside for every danger; 
Things that seem are not the same ; 
Blow a blast at every flame; 
For when one flame of fire goes out, 
Then come your wishes well about; 
If any ask who told you this good, 
Say, the white bear of England's wood. 

Second Bro. Well, if this do us any good, | 

Well fare the white bear of England's wood! 

[The two brothers ^0 out by the magic well, 
second brother repeating first two lines of the spell.] 

Erest. Now sit thee here, and tell a heavy tale. 
Sad in thy mood, and sober in thy cheer. 
Here sit thee now, and to thyself relate 
The hard mishap of thy most wretched state. 

[Madge and her companions again nod their un- 
derstanding and Madge prepares to knit, since 
others are telling her story for her.] 
In Thessaly I lived in sweet content. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 29 

Until that fortune wrought my overthrow; 

For there I wedded was unto a dame, 

That lived in honor, virtue, love, and fame. 

But Sacrapant, that cursed sorcerer, 

Being besotted with my beauteous love, 

My dearest love, my true betrothed wife, 

Did seek the means to rid me of my life. 

But worse than this, he with his 'chanting spells 

Did turn me straight unto an ugly bear; 

And when the sun doth settle in the west, 

Then I begin to don my ugly hide: 

And all the day I sit, as now you see, 

And speak in riddles, all inspired with rage, 

Seeming an old and miserable man. 

And yet I am in April of my age. 

[But now,]^ Venelia, my betrothed love, 

Runs madding, all enraged, about the woods, 

All by his cursed and enchanting spells. — 

[Enter, fireplace, Venelia, his lady, mad, search- 
ing about for the lover of whom her dim mind 
holds a fleeting memory, but whom she cannot rec- 
ognize. The three by the fireplace fear her and as 
she goes out thereat Fantastic explores the chimney 
with terror-stricken glances. 

All the while she is upon the stage, the singers 
heard before are singing the "Mad Maid's Song" of 
Robert Herrick.~\ 

[Ah,] 2 here comes Lampriscus, my discontented 

* Original, See where. 
'Original, But. 



30 OLD WIVES' TALE 

neighbour. 

[Enter, left, Lamprfscus, old, leaning on a staff, 
a beggarly man, querulous from much hen-pecking, 
the wreck of what might once have been a man. He 
bears a pot of honey. Lampriscus is a fellow -villager 
with Clunch and Madge^ one only indirectly con- 
nected with the fairy story through his daughters, 
vicariously a fairy as it were. During the Lam- 
priscus incident Madge knits busily, but attentively. 
Fantastic goes peacefully to sleep, and Frolic is 
enduring somewhat impatiently his aching feet.^ 

How now, neighbour! you look towards the 
ground as well as I : you muse on something. 

Lamp. Neighbour, on nothing but on the matter 
I so often moved to you: if you do anything for 
charity, help me; if for neighbourhood or brother- 
hood, help me; never was one so cumbered as is 
poor Lampriscus; and to begin, I pray receive this 
pot of honey, to mend your fare. 

Erest. Thanks, neighbour, set it down; honey 
is always welcome to the bear. And now, neigh- 
bour, let me hear the cause of your coming. 

Lamp. I am, as you know, neighbour, a man 
unmarried, and lived so unquietly with my two 
wives, that I keep every year holy the day wherein 
I buried them both: the first w^as on Saint An- 
drew's day, the other on Saint Luke's. 

Erest. And now, neighbour, you of this coun- 
try say, your custom is out. But on with your tale, 
neighbour. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 31 

Lamp. By my first wife, whose tongue wearied 
me alive, and sounded in my ears like the clapper 
of a great bell, whose talk was a continual torment 
to all that dwelt by her or lived nigh her, you have 
heard me say I had a handsome daughter. 

Erest. True, neighbour. 

Lamp. She it is that afflicts me with her con- 
tinual clamours, and hangs on me like a bur: poor 
she is, and proud she is; as poor as a sheep new- 
shorn, and as proud of her hopes as a peacock of 
her tail well-grown. 

Erest. Well said, Lampriscus, you speak it like 
an Englishman. 

Lamp. As curst as a wasp, and as froward as a 
child new-weaned; she is to my age, as smoke to 
the eyes, or as vinegar to the teeth. 

Erest. Holily praised, neighbour. As much for 
the next. 

Lamp. By my other wife I had a daughter so 
hard-favoured, so foul and ill faced, that I think a 
grove full of golden trees, and the leaves of rubies 
and diamonds, would not be a dowry answerable 
to her deformity. 

Erest. Well, neighbour, now you have spoke, 
hear me speak : send them to the well for the water 
of life; there shall they find their fortunes unlooked 
for. Neighbour, farewell. 

Lamp. Farewell, and a thousand. [Erestus 
goes out by the well.l And now goeth poor Lam- 
priscus to put in execution this excellent counsel. 



32 OLD WIVES' TALE 

\^He goes out right. ~\ 

Fro. Why, this goes round without a fiddling- 
stick: but, do you hear, gammer, was this the man 
that was a bear in the night and a man in the day? 
Madge. Ay, this is he; and this man that came 
to him was a beggar, and dwelt upon a green. [En- 
trance of Harvesters for dance.] But soft! who 
come here? O, these are the harvestmen; ten to 
one they sing a song of mowing. 
[Their song is sung without.] 

All ye that lovely lovers be, 

Pray you for me: 

Lo, here we come a-sowing, a-sowing, 

And sow sweet fruits of love; 

In your sweet hearts well may it prove ! 
[Enter, fireplace, Huanebango violently frighten- 
ing off the dancers and awakening Fantastic with a 
start. He is dressed in fantastic and highly-colored 
garb, as one who is complacent about himself, and 
bears in his hand a great two-handed sword, whose 
blade, however, in spite of much boasting, has not 
yet been steeped in gore. It may be there is in this 
fantastical figure a touch of satire upon knighthood 
which is past its fiower. Huanebango is followed 
by Corebus, the booby, arrayed as for a village fes- 
tival in the proudest of suits. Let those who are 
hasty to judge this Corebus a coward, withhold 
their opinion. He likes not the point of a two- 
handed sword when it is thrust at his breast, but 
he knows the boasting of Huan to be the hoUowest 



OLD WIVES' TALE 33 

mockery and shows himself after all a man of 
judgment in many things, having, indeed, no little 
learning of his own. As Huan begins his speech. 
Fantastic and Frolic start after Corebus and Huan 
in great curiosity, but at sight of his sword return 
hastily to the settle.^ 

Huan. Now, by Mars and Mercury, Jupiter 
and Janus, Sol and Saturnus, Venus and Vesta, 
Pallas and Proserpina, and by the honour of my 
house, Polimackeroeplacidus, it is a wonder to see 
what this love will make silly fellows adventure, 
even in the wane of their wits and infancy of their 
discretion. Alas, my friend, what fortune calls 
thee forth to seek thy fortune among brazen gates, 
enchanted towers, fire and brimstone, thunder and 
lightning? Her beauty, I tell thee, is peerless, and 
she precious whom thou affectest. Do ofif these 
desires, good countryman: good friend, run away 
from thyself ; and, so soon as thou canst, forget her, 
whom none must inherit but he that can monsters 
tame, labours achieve, riddles absolve, loose en- 
chantments, murder magic, and kill conjuring, — 
and that is the great and mighty Huanebango. 

Cor. Hark you, sir, hark you. First know I 
have here the flurting feather, and have given the 
parish the start for the long stock :^ now, sir, if it 
be no more but running through a little lightning 
and thunder, and "riddle me, riddle me, what's 
this?" I'll have the wench from the conjurer, if 

*Long stocking. 



34 OLD WIVES' TALE 

he were ten conjurers. 

Fan. [Fearfully and with deep interest.~\ Gam- 
mer, what is he? 

Madge. [Condescendingly superior. She has 
never stopped knitting. This is her story and noth- 
ing can surprise her.] O, this is one that is going 
to the conjurer: let him alone, hear what he says.^ 

HuAN. I have abandoned the court and honour- 
able company, to do my devoir against this sore 
sorcerer and mighty magician: if this lady be so 
fair as she is said to be, she is mine, she is mine; 
meus, mea, meum, in contemptum omnium gram- 
maticorum. 

Cor. O falsum Latinum! 
The fair maid is minum. 
Cum apurtinantibus gihletis and all. 

HuAN. If she be mine, as I assure myself the 
heavens will do somewhat to reward my worthiness, 
she shall be allied to none of the meanest gods, but 
be invested in the most famous stock of Huane- 
bango, — Polimackeroeplacidus, my grandfather, my 
father, Pergopolineo, my mother, Dionora de Sar- 
dinia, famously descended. 

Cor. Do you hear, sir? had not you a cousin 
that was called Gusteceridis? 

HuAN. Indeed, I had a cousin that sometime 
followed the court infortunately, and his name Bus- 
tegusteceridis. [Enter, well to cross, Erestus, un- 

^This speech and the one which precedes were origi- 
nally before the first speech of Huanebango. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 35 

seen.^ 

Cor. O Lord, I know him well ! he is the knight 
of the neat's-feet. 

HuAN. O, he loved no capon better! he hath 
oftentimes deceived his boy of his dinner; that was 
his fault, good Bustegusteceridis. 

Cor. Come, shall we go along? [Sees Eres- 
tus.] 

Soft! here is an old man at the cross: let us ask 
him the way thither. — Ho, you gaffer! I pray you 
tell where the wise man the conjurer dwells. 

HuAN. Where that earthly goddess keepeth her 
abode, the commander of my thoughts, and fair 
mistress of my heart. 

Erest. Fair enough, and far enough from thy 
fingering, son. 

HuAN. I will follow my fortune after mine own 
fancy, and do according to mine own discretion. 

Erest. Yet give something to an old man be- 
fore you go. 

HuAN. Father, methinks a piece of this cake 
might serve your turn. 

Erest. Yea, son. 

HuAN. Huanebango giveth no cakes for alms: 
ask of them that give gifts for poor beggars. — Fair 
lady, if thou wert once shrined in this bosom, I 
would buckler thee haratantara. [He goes out by 
the luell.] 

CoK. Father, do you see this man? you little 
think he'll run a mile or two for such a cake, or 



36 OLD WIVES' TALE 

pass^ for a pudding. I tell you, father, he has kept 
such a begging of me for a piece of this cake! 
Whoo! he comes upon me with "a superfantial sub- 
stance, and the foison of the earth," that I know 
not w^hat he means. If he came to me thus, and 
said, "My friend, Corebus," or so, why, I could 
spare him a piece with all my heart; but when he 
tells me how God hath enriched me above other 
fellows with a cake, why, he makes me blind and 
deaf at once. Yet, father, here is a piece of cake 
for you, as hard as the w^orld goes. [Gives cake.^ 

Erest. Thanks, son, but list to me; 
He shall be deaf when thou shalt not see. 
Farewell, my son; things may so hit, 
Thou mayst have wealth to mend thy wit. 

Cor. Farewell, father, farewell; for I must 
make haste after my two-hand sword that is gone 
before. 

[They go out severally, Corebus by well, Erestus 
by fireplace, Madge keeps on knitting. Fantastic 
composes himself for another nap and Frolic turns 
his attention again to his feet.^ 

[The back curtain is drawn aside by two fairies, 
who take their stand on either side the entrance to 
the cell. Sacrapant, the sorcerer, appears in his 
cell and there does magic. He is clad in the dark 
robes of sorcery and is in form majestic. In his 
hand he bears a wand and on his head he wears a 
wreath, the signs of his magic power. Without 

^Care for. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 37 

these he is impotent and doomed to death. At his 
first word there are signs of intense fear in the 
three spectators^ which die down as the incidents 
unfold.^ 

Sac. The day is clear, the welkin bright and 

grey, 
The lark is merry and records her notes; 
Each thing rejoiceth underneath the sky, 
But only I, whom heaven hath in hate, 
Wretched and miserable Sacrapant. 
In Thessaly was I born and brought up: 
My mother Meroe hight, a famous witch, 
And by her cunning I of her did learn 
To change and alter shapes of mortal men. 
There did I turn myself into a dragon, 
And stole away the daughter to the king. 
Fair Delia, the mistress of my heart; 
And brought her hither to revive the man^ 
That seemeth young and pleasant to behold. 
And yet is aged, crooked, weak, and numb. 
Thus by enchanting spells I do deceive 
Those that behold and look upon my face; 
But well may I bid youthful years adieu. 
See where she comes from whence my sorrows 

grow! 
[Delia enters by the well with a pot in her hand. 
She is drawn, it seems, by the magic in the wand of 
Sacrapant for she walks as one fixed in a dream, 
modestly and with a charming innocence.^ 
* Sacrapant. 



38 OLD WIVlES' TALE 

How now, fair Delia! where have you been? 

Del. At the foot of the rock for running water, 
and gathering roots for your dinner, sir. 

Sac. Ah, Delia, 
Fairer art thou than the running water. 
Yet harder far than steel or adamant! 
Del. Will it please you to sit down, sir? 
Sac. Ay, Delia, sit and ask me what thou wilt, 
thou shalt have it brought into thy lap. 

Del. Then, I pray you, sir, let me have the Best 
meat from the King of England's table, and the 
best wine in all France, brought in by the veriest 
knave in all Spain. 

Sac. Delia, I am glad to see you so pleasant: ' 
Well, sit thee down. — 

[There is without the sound of voices singing an 
incantation. Sacrapant with the magic in his wand 
directs the two fairies standing by his cell door to 
set the table and draws from his cell a fat and jolly 
friar in black to serve his meat. As the song ceases 
the fairies return to their places beside the curtain, 
and the Friar places the food upon the table.'\ 
Spread, table, spread. 
Meat, drink, and bread. 
Ever may I have 
WTiat I ever crave. 
When I am spread. 
Meat for my black cock, 
And meat for my red. 
[Sacrapant and Delia seat themselves, the Friar 



OLD WIVES' TALE 39 

standing behind the chair of Sacrapant.] 

Sac. Here, Delia, will ye fall to? 

Del. Is this the best meat in England? 

Sac. Yea. 

Del. What is it? 

Sac. a chine of English beef, meat for a king 
and a king's followers. 

Del. Is this the best wine in France? 

Sac. Yea. 

Del. What wine is it? 

Sac. a cup of neat wine of Orleans, that never 
came near the brewers in England. 

Del. Is this the veriest knave in all Spain? 

Sac. Yea. 

Del. What, is he a friar? 

Sac. Yea, a friar indefinite, and a knave infinite. 

Del. Then, I pray ye, Sir Friar, tell me before 
you go, which is the most greediest Englishman? 

Frl The miserable and most covetous usurer. 

Sac. Hold thee there, friar. [The Friar goes 
into the cell. ^ But, soft! [Sacrapant ^me^.] 
Who have we here? Delia, away, be gone! 
Delia, away! for beset are we. — [Delia disappears 
in the cell. Fairies remove table and stools, 
close curtains and go out.^ 
But heaven or hell shall rescue her for me. [From 
cell door. He then goes out.^ 

[The two brothers enter by the well, searching 
anxiously for Delia.] 

First Bro. Brother, was not that Delia did 



40 OLD WIVES' TALE 

appear, 
Or was it but her shadow that was here? 

Second Bro. Sister, where art thou? Delia, 
come again! 
He calls, that of thy absence doth complain. — 
Call out, Calypha, so that she may hear. 
And cry aloud, for Delia is near. 

Echo. Near. 

First Bro. Near ! O, where? hast thou any tid- 
ings? 

Echo. Tidings. 

Second Bro. Which way is Delia, then? or that, 
or this? 

Echo. This. 

First Bro. And may we safely come where 
Delia is? 

Echo. Yes. 

Second Bro. Brother, remember you the white 
bear of England's wood? 
"Start not aside for every danger. 
Be not afeard of every stranger; 
Things that seem are not the same." 

First Bro. Brother, 
Why do we not, then, courageously enter? 

Second Bro. Then, brother, draw thy sword 
and follow me. 

[// lightens and thunders as Sacrapant enters 
from the cellj the curtains of which fairies have 
drawn as before. The Second Brother falls down. 
Fantastic and Frolic attempt to run away. Madge 



OLD WIVES' TALE 41 

tries to hide.} 

First Bro. What, brother, dost thou fall? 

Sac. Ay, and thou too, Calypha. 

[The First Brother falls down.] 
Adeste, daemones! 

[Enter from cell Two Furies in red with awful 
countenances. And the three for whom the tale is 
played are crouching in the very fireplacCj debased 
with terror.] 

Away with them : 
Carry them straight to Sacrapanto's cell, 
There in despair and torture for to dwell. 

[Furies go out with the Two Brothers. When 
the Furies disappear Sacrapant advances to the 
mound of earth and there speaks.] 
These are Thenores' sons of Thessaly, 
That come to seek Delia their sister forth; 
But, with a potion I to her have given. 
My arts have made her to forget herself. 

[Removes a turf, and shows a light in a glass. 
The three huddled ones grow more calm.] 
See here the thing which doth prolong my life, 
With this enchantment I do anything; 
And till this fade, my skill shall still endure; 
And never none shall break this little glass, 
But she that's neither wife, widow, nor maid: 

[He starts with relief across the stage where con- 
fronted by the cross the evil in him cowers before 
the symbol and he retreats unmanned into his cell.] 
Then cheer thyself; this is thy destiny. 



42 OLD WIVES' TALE 

Never to die but by a dead man's hand. [He goes 
out; fairies close cell curtains as before.^ 

[Enter, fireplace, Erestus to the cross. Follow- 
ing him not too closely, comes Eumenides the ex- 
hausted lover of Delia, in clothing once fine but 
bedraggled by many wanderings.~\ 

EuM. Tell me, Time, 
Tell me, just Time, when shall I Delia see? 
When shall I see the loadstar of my life? 
When shall my wandering course end with her 

sight. 
Or I but view my hope, my heart's delight? 

[He sees Erestus at the cross.] 
Father, God speed! if you tell fortunes, I pray, 
good father, tell me mine. 

Erest. Son, I do see in thy face 
Thy blessed fortune work apace: 
I do perceive that thou hast wit; 
Beg of thy fate to govern it, 
For wisdom governed by advice. 
Makes many fortunate and wise. 
Bestow thy alms, give more than all. 
Till dead men's bones come at thy call. i 

Farewell, my son: dream of no rest, | 

Till thou repent that thou didst best. '; 

[Goes out, well.] ; 

EuM. [Sitting by the cross.] This man hath 

left me in a labyrinth: i 

He biddeth me give more than all. 
Till dead men's bones come at my call; 



OLD WIVES' TALE 43 

He biddeth me dream of no rest, 
Till I repent that I do best. [Leans against cross 
and sleeps.^ 

[Enter Wiggen, Corebus, Churchwarden, and 
Sexton, the first two bearing upon a bier a body 
covered with a black cloth, the Churchwarden with 
a staff in his hand, and the Sexton carrying a shovel. 
Wiggfn and Corebus are slightly the worse for wear 
and as a result combative; the Churchwarden has 
the courage of his convictions, which are few and 
those not complex; the Sexton is a coward unless 
protected by the broad back and resolute shoulders 
of the Churchwarden, when he ventures some slight 
expostulatory gestures. On the whole they are a 
commonplace quartette of villagers engaged in a 
somewhat heated argument. They advance front 
during the altercation, putting down the bier. 
Meanwhile Madge and her friends are composed 
again, Madge nearly asleep over her knitting. She 
quite goes off; but Fantastic and Frolic get inter- 
ested in the quarrel and even investigate the bier.^ 

Wig. You may be ashamed, you rascally scald 
Sexton and Churchwarden, if you had any shame 
in those shameless faces of yours, to let a poor man 
lie so long above ground unburied. A rot on you 
all, that have no more compassion of a good fellow 
when he is gone! 

Church. What, would you have us to bury him 
and to answer it ourselves to the parish? 

Sex. Parish me no parishes; pay me my fees, 



44 OLD WIVES' TALE 

and let the rest run on in the quarter's accounts, 
and put it down for one of your good deeds, o' God's 
name! for I am not one that curiously stands upon 
merits. 

Cor. You rascally, sodden-headed sheep's face, 
shall a good fellow do less service and more hon- 
esty to the parish, and will you not, when he is 
dead, let him have Christmas burial? 

Wig. Peace, Corebus ! as sure as Jack was Jack, 
the frolic'st franion amongst you, and I, Wiggen, 
his sweet sworn brother, Jack shall have his fu- 
nerals, or some of them shall lie on God's dear earth 
for it, that's once. 

Church. Wiggen, I hope thou wilt do no more 
than thou darest answer. 

Wig. Sir, sir, dare or dare not, more or less, 
answer or not answer, — do this, or have this. 

Sex. Help, help, help! 

[Wiggen sets upon the Churchwarden with his 
fists. Eumenides awakes and comes to them.~\ 

EuM. Hold thy hands, good fellow. 

Cor. Can you blame him, sir, if he take Jack's 
part against this shake-rotten parish that will not 
bury Jack? 

EuM. Why, what w^as that Jack? 

Cor. Who, Jack, sir? who, our Jack, sir? as 
good a fellow as ever trod upon neat's-leather. 

Wig. Look you, sir ; he gave fourscore and nine- 
teen mourning gowns to the parish, when he died, 
and because he would not make them up a full hun- 



OLD WIVES' TALE 45 

dred, they would not bury him: was not this good 
dealing? 

Church. O Lord, sir, how he lies! he was not 
worth a halfpenny, and drunk out every penny ; and 
now his fellows, his drunken companions, would 
have us to bury him at the charge of the parish. An 
we make many such matches, we may pull down the 
steeple, sell the bells, and thatch the chancel: he 
shall lie above ground till he dance a galliard about 
the churchyard, for Steeven Loach. 

Wig. Sic argumentaris, Domine Loach, — An we 
make many such matches, we may pull down the 
steeple, sell the bells and thatch the chancel? In 
good time, sir, and hang yourselves in the bell-ropes, 
when you have done. Domine, opponens praepono 
tibi hanc quaestionem, whether will you have the 
ground broken or your pates broken first? for one 
of them shall be done presently, and to begin mine, 
I'll seal it upon your coxcomb. 

EuM. Hold thy hands, I pray thee, good fel- 
low; be not too hasty. 

Cor. You capon's face, we shall have you turned 
out of the parish one of these days, with never a 
tatter to your back; then you are in worse taking 
than Jack. 

EuM. Faith, and he is bad enough. This fellow 
does but the part of a friend, to seek to bury his 
friend : how much will bury him ? 

Wig. Faith, about some fifteen or sixteen shil- 
lings will bestow him honestly. 



46 OLD WIVES' TALE 

Sex. Ay, even thereabouts, sir. 

EuM. Here, hold it, then: — [asidel and I have 
left me but one poor three halfpence: now do I 
remember the words the old man spake at the cross, 
"Bestow all thou hast," and this is all, "till dead 
men's bones come at thy call" ; — here, hold it [gives 
money] ; and so farewell. 

Wig. God, and all good, be with you, sir! 
[Eumenides goes out, well.'] Nay, you cormorants, 
I'll bestow one peal of^ Jack at mine own proper 
costs and charges. 

Cor. You may thank God the long staff and 
the bilboblade crossed not your coxcombs. — ^Well, 
we'll to the churchstile and have a pot, and so 
trill-lill. [Goes out with Wiggen, left front.] 

Church.) Come, let's go. [They go out left 

Sex. ) front carrying bier.] 

Fan. But, hark you, gammer [nudging her], 
methinks this Jack bore a great sway in the parish. 

Madge. [Sleepily.] O, this Jack was a mar- 
vellous fellow! he was but a poor man, but very 
well beloved : you shall see anon what this Jack will 
come to. [Goes back to sleep.] 

[The Harvestmen return from reaping, with the 
Women, as their song is sung outside.] 

Fro. Soft ! who have we here ? our amorous har- 
"vesters. 

Fan. Ay, ay, let us sit still, and let them alone. 

[Singing without, as they dance.] 



OLD WIVES' TALE 47 

Lo, here we come a-reaping, a-reaping, 
To reap our harvest-fruit! 
And thus we pass the year so long, 
And never be we mute. 
[Enter, well, Huanebango abruptly, frightening 
them away.~\ 

HuAN. Fee, fa, fum, 

Here is the Englishman, — 
Conquer him that can, — 
Come for his lady bright, 
To prove himself a knight, 
And win her love in fight. 
Fro. Soft! who have we here? 
Madge. [Awaking.'] O, this is a choleric gen- 
tleman! All you that love your lives, keep out of 
the smell of his two-hand sword: now goes he to 
the conjurer. 

Fan. Methinks the conjurer should put the fool 
into a juggling-box.^ 
[Enter Corebus^ well.] 

Cor. Who-haw, Master Bango, are you here? 
hear you, you had best sit down here, and beg an 
alms with me. 

HuAN. Hence, base cullion! here is he that 

commandeth ingress and egress with his weapon, 

and will enter at his voluntary, whosoever saith no. 

Voice. No. 

[A flaine of fire; and Huanebango falls dozen.] 

^ Originally this speech and the two preceding it were 
before the first speech by Huanebango. 



48 OLD WIVES' TALE 

Madge. [Aroused.] So with that they kissed 
and spoiled the edge of as good a two-hand sword 
as ever God put life in. Now goes Corebus in, spite 
of the conjurer. [During this speech the fairies 
open cell curtains as before.] 

[Enter Sacrapant followed by Two Furies.] 
Sac. Away with him into the open fields, 
To be a ravening prey to crows and kites: 

[Huan is carried out by the Two Furies.] 
And for this villain, let him wander up and down, 
In naught but darkness and eternal night. 

[Strikes Corebus blind.] 
Cor. Here hast thou slain Huan, a slashing 
knight, 
And robbed poor Corebus of his sight. 
Sac. Hence, villain, hence! 

[Corebus goes out, gropingly, at the right.] 
Now I have unto Delia given a potion of forget- 
fulness. 

[The three are now all asleep.] 
That, when she comes, she shall not know her 

brothers. 
Lo, where they labour, like to country-slaves. 
With spade and mattock, on this enchanted ground ! 
Now will I call her by another name; 
For never shall she know herself again 
Until that Sacrapant hath breathed his last. 
See where she comes. 

[Enter, well, Delia, still passively controlled by 
the wand of Sacrapant. She goes into Sacrapant's 



OLD WIVES' TALE 49 

magic circle drawn upon the ground.~\ 
Come hither, Delia, take this goad; here hard 
At hand two slaves do work and dig for gold: 
Gore them with this, and thou shalt have enough. 

[Gives her a goad.^ 

Del. Good sir, I know not what you mean. 

Sac. [Aside.'] She hath forgotten to be Delia, 
But not forgot the same she should forget; 
But I will change her name. — 
Fair Berecynthia, so this country calls you, 
Go ply these strangers, wench; they dig for gold. 
[He goes out through cell.] 

Del. O heavens, how 
Am I beholding to this fair young man! 
But I must ply these strangers to their work: 
See where they come. 

[Enter, cell, the Two Brothers, in their shirts, 
with spades. They advance to plead with Delia, 
who drives them to work at the mound of earth.] 

First Bro. O brother, see where Delia is ! 

Second Bro. O Delia, 
Happy are we to see thee here! 

Del. What tell you me of Delia, prating swains? 
I know no Delia, nor know I what you mean. 
Ply you your work, or else you're like to smart. 

First Bro. Why, Delia, know'st thou not thy 
brothers here? 
We come from Thessaly to seek thee forth; 
And thou deceiv'st thyself, for thou art Delia. 

Del. Yet more of Delia? then take this, and 



50 OLD WIVES' TALE 

smart: [Whips them.] 

What, feign you shifts for to defer your labour? 
Work, villains, work; it is for gold you dig. 

Second Bro. Peace, brother, peace: this vile 
enchanter 
Hath ravished Delia of her senses clean. 
And she forgets that she is Delia. 

First Bro. Leave, cruel thou, to hurt the mis- 
erable. — 
Dig, brother, dig, for she is hard as steel. 

[Here they dig, and descry a light in a glass under 
a little hill.] 

Second Bro. Stay, brother; what hast thou 

descried ? 
Del. Away, and touch it not; 'tis something 
that 
My lord hath hidden there. 

[Covers the light again.] 
[Re-enter Sacrapant from cell.] 
Sac. Well said ! thou plyest these pioners well. — 
Go get you in, you labouring slaves. 

[The Two Brothers go into the cell.] 
Come, Berecynthia, let us in likewise. 
And hear the nightingale record her notes. 

[They go into the cell and fairies close the cur- 
tains.] 

[Enter J right, Zantippa to the well of life with a 
pot in her hand. Zantippa's name belies neither her- 
self nor the description her father has given her. 
She is fair and comely but has a ''tongue with a 



OLD WIVES' TALE 51 

tang" and a disposition matching it.'\ 

Zan. Now for a husband, house, and home: God 
send a good one or none, I pray God! My father 
hath sent me to the well for the water of life, and 
tells me, if I give fair words, I shall have a husband. 
But here comes Celanta, my sweet sister: I'll stand 
by and hear what she says. [Retires.'] 

[Enter, right, Celanta to the well of life, with a 
pot in her hand. She is the opposite to her sister. 
Dark, ill-favored, almost homely in appearance, she 
has a disposition as gentle as an opening bud in May. 
There is no malice in her, though she thinks what 
she thinks about Zantippa.] 

Cel. My father hath sent me to the well for 
water, and he tells me, if I speak fair, I shall have 
a husband, and none of the worst. Well, though 
I am black, I am sure all the world will not for- 
sake me; and, as the old proverb is, though I am 
black, I am not the devil. 

Zan. [Coming forward.] Marry-gup with a 
murren, I know wherefore thou speakest that: but 
go thy ways home as wise as thou camest, or I'll 
set thee home with a wanion. 

[Here she snatches away her sister's pitcher and 
rushes out, left.] 

Cel. I think this be the curstest quean in the 
world: you see what she is, a little fair, but as 
proud as the devil, and the veriest vixen that lives 
upon God's earth. Well, I'll let her alone, and go 
home, and get another pitcher, and, for all this, get 



52 OLD WIVES' TALE 

me to the well for water. [She goes out, right.] 

[Enter, out of Sacrapant's cell, the Two Furies, 
carrying Huanebango: they lay him by the Well of 
Life, and then go out. Re-enter Zantippa with a 
pitcher to the well.] 

Zan. Once again for a husband; and, in faith, 
Celanta I have got the start of you; belike hus- 
bands grow by the well-side. Now my father says 
I must rule my tongue: why, alas, what am I, then? 
A woman without a tongue is as a soldier w^ithout 
his w^eapon: but I'll have my water, and be gone. 

[Here she offers to dip her pitcher in, and a 
Head rises in the well.] 

[Singing without.] Gently dip, but not too deep, 
For fear you make the golden beard to weep, 
Fair maiden, white and red. 
Stroke me smooth, and comb my head. 
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread. 

Zan. What is this? 
"Fair maiden, white and red. 
Comb me smooth, and stroke my head. 
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread?" 
"Cockell" callest thou it, boy? faith, I'll give you 
cockell-bread. 

[She threatens to break her pitcher upon the 
Head: then it thunders and lightens; and Huane- 
bango, who is deaf and cannot hear, rises up. Huan 
woos as he does everything else, not intelligently, 
hut violently. Yet Zantippa both matches and cap- 
tures him.] 



OLD WIVES' TALE 53 

-^ 

/ HuAN. Philida, phileridos, pamphilida, florfda, 
flortos : 
Dub dub-a-dub, bounce, quoth the guns, with a 

sulphurous huff-snuff: 
Waked with a wench, pretty peat, pretty love and 

my sweet pretty pigsnie. 
Just by thy side shall sit surnamed great Huane- 

bango : 
Safe in my arms will I keep thee, threat Mars, or 
^ thunder Olympus. 

[His outburst awakens the three, who exhibit 
great interest.^ 

Zan. [Aside.'] Fob, what greasy groom have we 
here? He looks as though he crept out of the back- 
side of the well, and speaks like a drum perished 
at the west end. 

HuAN. O, that I might, — but I may not, woe 
to my destiny therefore — 
Kiss that I clasp ! but I cannot : tell me, my destiny, 
wherefore? 
Zan. [Aside.] Whoop, now I have my dream. 
Did you never hear so great a wonder as this, three 
blue beans in a blue bladder, rattle, bladder, rattle? 
HuAN. [Aside.] I'll now set my countenance, 
and to her in prose; it may be, this rim-ram-ruff is 
too rude an encounter. — Let me, fair lady, if you 
be at leisure, revel with your sweetness, and rail 
upon that cowardly conjurer, that hath cast me, or 
congealed me rather, into an unkind sleep, and pol- 
luted my carcass. 



54 OLD WIVES' TALE 

Zan. [Aside.], Laugh, laugh, Zantippa; thou 
hast thy fortune, a fool and a husband under one. 

HuAN. Truly, sweetheart, as I seem, about some 
twenty years, the very April of mine age. 

Zan. [Aside.] Why, what a prating ass is this! 

HuAN. Her coral lips, her crimson chin. 
Her silver teeth so white within, 
Her golden locks, her rolling eye. 
Her pretty parts, let them go by, 
Heigh-ho, have wounded me, 
That I must die this day to see! 
^ Zan. By Gogs-bones, thou art a flouting knave : 
"her coral lips, her crimson chin!" ka, wilshaw! 

HuAN. True, my own, and my own because 
mine, and mine because mine, ha, ha! — Above a 
thousand pounds in possibility, and things fitting 
thy desire in possession. 

Zan. [Aside.] The sot thinks I ask of his 
lands. Lob be your comfort. . . . Hear you, sir; 
an if you will have us, you had best say so betime. 

HuAN. True, sweetheart, and will royalize thy 
progeny with my pedigree. 

[They go out, fireplace. Zantippa the Shrew and 
Huanebango the Boaster go the primrose path of 
dalliance out of the tale into Fairyland.] 

[Enter, left, Corebus, who is blind, and Celanta, 
to the Well of Life for water. ]^ 

Cor. Come, my duck, come: I have now got a 

^ This episode in the original follows the one it here 
precedes. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 55 

wife: thou art fair, art thou not? 

Cel. My Corebus, the fairest alive; make no 
doubt of that. 

Cor. Come, wench, are we almost at the well? 

Cel. Ay, Corebus, we are almost at the well 
now. 
I'll go fetch some water: sit down while I dip my 
pitcher in. 

[A Head comes up with ears of corn, which she 
combs into her lap.] 

[Singing without.'] Gently dip, but not too deep, 
For fear you make the golden beard to weep. 
Fair maiden, white and red, 
Comb me smooth, and stroke my head, 
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread. 

[A Second Head comes up full of gold, which 
she combs into her lap.] 

[Singing without.] Gently dip, but not too deep, 
For fear thou make the golden beard to weep. 
Fair maid, white and red. 
Comb me smooth, and stroke my head, 
And every hair a sheaf shall be, 
And every sheaf a golden tree. 

Cel. O, see, Corebus, I have combed a great 
deal of gold into my lap, and a great deal of corn! 

Cor. Well said, wench! [He feels in her lap.] 
Now we shall have just enough: God send us coin- 
ers to coin our gold. But come, shall we go home, 
sweetheart ? 

Cel. Nay, come, Corebus, I will lead you. 



56 OLD WIVES' TALE 

Cor. So, Corebus, things have well hit; 
Thou hast gotten wealth to mend thy wit. 

[They go outj fireplace.^ 

[Enter, well, Eumenides, even more hopeless than 
before. He seats himself , despondent, at the cross. 
The three go gradually off to sleep for the rest of 
the play.] 

EuM. Wretched Eumenides, still unfortunate, 
Envied by fortune and forlorn by fate, 
Here pine and die, wretched Eumenides, 
Die in the spring, the April of thy age! 
Here sit thee down, repent what thou hast done: 
I would to God that it were ne'er begun! 

[Enter, fireplace. Ghost of Jack^ following Eu- 
menides. The shadow of a sprightly young fellow 
full of attitudes and the play of wit and fancy in 
many poses. This is no somber and mysterious 
ghost, except when bent upon undoing evil. Even 
then he goes about his business somewhat more 
cheerfully than do many.] 

G. OF Jack. You are wtII overtaken, sir. 

EuM. Who's that? 

G. OF Jack. You are heartily well met, sir. 

EuM. Forbear, I say; w^ho is that which pinch- 
eth me? 

G. OF Jack. Trusting in God, good Master 
Eumenides, that you are in so good health as all 
your friends were at the making hereof, — God give 
you good morrow, sir ! Lack you not a neat, hand- 
some, and cleanly young lad, about the age of fifteen 



OLD WIVES' TALE 57 

or sixteen years, that can run by your horse, and, 
for a need, make your mastership's shoes as black as 
ink? How say you, sir? 

EuM. Alas, pretty lad, I know not how to keep 
myself, and much less a servant, my pretty boy; my 
state is so bad. 

G. OF Jack. Content yourself, you shall not be 
so ill a master but I'll be as bad a servant. Tut, sir, 
I know you, though you know not me : are not you 
the man, sir, deny it if you can, sir, that came from 
a strange place in the land of Catita, where Jack- 
an-apes flies with his tail in his mouth, to seek out 
a lady as white as snow and as red as blood? Ha, 
ha! have I touched you now? 

EuM. [Aside.] I think this boy be a spirit. — 
How knowest thou all this? 

G. OF Jack. Tut, are not you the man, sir, deny 
it if you can, sir, that gave all the money you had to 
the burying of a poor man, and but one three half- 
pence left in your purse? Content you, sir. I'll 
serve you, that is flat. 

EuM. Well, my lad, since thou are so importu- 
nate, I am content to entertain thee, not as a serv- 
ant, but a co-partner in my journey. But whither 
shall we go? for I have not any money more than 
one bare three halfpence. 

G. OF Jack. Well, master, content yourself, for 
if my divination be not out, that shall be spent at the 
next inn or alehouse we come to; for, master, I 
know you are passing hungry: therefore I'll go 



58 OLD WIVES' TALE 

before and provide dinner until that you come; no 
doubt but you'll come fair and softly after. 

EuM. Ay, go before: I'll follow thee. [Hope- 
lessly.^ 

G. OF Jack. But do you hear, master? do you 
know my name ? 

EuM. No, I promise thee; not yet. 

G. OF Jack. Why, I am Jack. [He goes out, 
behind settle.^ 

EuM. Jack! why, be it so, then. [Still he fails 
to recognize this ghost. ^ 

[Fairies bring in table and stool, taking position 
at front curtains. Enter Hostess, a trim and smiling 
woman, and Jack setting meat on the table. Eu- 
menides walks up and down and will eat no meat.] 

Host. How say you, sir? do you please to sit 
down? 

EuM. Hostess, I thank you, I have no great 
stomach. [Seats himself.] 

Host. Pray, sir, what is the reason your master 
is so strange? doth not this meat please him? 

G. OF Jack. Yes, hostess, but it is my master's 
fashion to pay before he eats; therefore, a reckon- 
ing, good hostess. 

Host. Marry, shall you, sir, presently. [She 
goes out, behind settle.] 

EuM. Why, Jack, what dost thou mean? thou 
knowest I have not any money; therefore, sweet 
Jack, tell me what shall I do? 

G. OF Jack. Well, master, look in your purse. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 59 

EuM. Why, faith, it is a folly, for I have no 

money. , 

G. OF Jack. Why, look you, master ; do so much 

^0^ ^^' -. A 1 T 1 

EuM. [Looking into his purse.] Alas, Jack, my 
purse is full of money! 

G. OF Jack. ^'Alas," master! does that word 
belong to this accident? why, methinks I should have 
seen you cast away your cloak and in a bravado dance 
a galliard round about the chamber: why, master, 
your man can teach you more wit than this. 

[He calls the Hostess.] 

Come, Hostess, cheer up my master. 

Host. [Entering.] You are heartily welcome; 
and if it please you to eat of a fat capon, a fairer 
bird, a finer bird, a sweeter bird, a crisper bird, a 
neater bird, your worship never eat of. 

EuM. Thanks, my fine, eloquent Hostess. 

G. of Jack. But hear you, master, one word by 
the way: are you content I shall be halves in all you 
get in your journey? 

EuM. [Risiriff.] I am, Jack, here is my hand. 

G. OF Jack. Enough, master, I ask no more. 

EuM. Come, Hostess, receive your money; and 
I thank you for my good entertainment. [Gives 

money.] 

Host. You are heartily welcome, sir. 

EuM. Come, Jack, whither go we now? 

G. OF Jack. Marry, master, to the conjurers 
presently. 



6o OLD WIVES' TALE 

EuM. Content, Jack. — Hostess, farewell. 

[Hostess goes out behind settle.^ 

G. OF Jack. Come away, master, come. 

[They start toward the cross. Fairies go out be- 
hind settle, with table and stool. ^ 

EuM. Go along. Jack, I'll follow thee. Jack, 
they say it is good to go cross-legged, and say pray- 
ers backward; how sayest thou? 

G. OF Jack. Tut, never fear, master; let me 
alone. Here sit you still ; speak not a word ; and 
because you shall not be enticed with his enchanting 
speeches, with this same wool I'll stop your ears. 
[Puts wool into the ears of Eumenides.] And so, 
master, sit still, for I must to the conjurer. 

[He goes out through closed curtains of cell un- 
seen of Sacrapant who instantly appears between the 
undrawn curtains and is as instantly followed by the 
Ghost of Jack invisible to the sorcerer.^ 

Sac. How now ! w^hat man art thou, that sits so 
sad? 
Why dost thou gaze upon these stately trees 
Without the leave and will of Sacrapant? 
What, not a word but mum ? Then, Sacrapant, 
Thou art betrayed. 

[The Ghost of Jack takes Sacrapant's wreath off 
from his head and wearing it himself runs about 
the stage. Sacrapant looks about in dread but sees 
him not.~\ 

What hand invades the head of Sacrapant? 
What hateful Fury doth envy my happy state? 



OLD WIVES' TALE 6i 

Then, Sacrapant, these are thy latest days. 

[The Ghost comes flitting back and twists from 
Sacrapant's nerveless fingers his magic wand; hold- 
ing it as Sacrapant was used to do until the sorcerer 
has disappeared.^ 

Alas, my veins are numbed, my sinews shrink. 
My blood is pierced, my breath fleeting away, 
And now my timeless date is come to end! 
He in whose life his acts have been so foul. 
Now in his death to hell descends his soul. 

[He goes out through closed curtains of cell.] 

G. OF Jack. O, sir, are you gone? Now I hope 
we shall have some other coil. Now master, how 
like you this? the conjurer he is dead, and vows 
never to trouble us more. Now get you to your 
fair lady, and see what you can do with her. — Alas, 
he heareth me not all this while! but I will help 
that. 

[Pulls the wool out of the ears of Eumenides.] 

EuM. How now, Jack! what news? 

G. OF Jack. Here, master, take this sword 
[Shows Eumenides his own sword, and leads him 
to the mound], and dig with it at the foot of this 
hill. 

[Eumenides digs, and spies a light in a glass.] 

EuM. How now. Jack! what is this? 

G. OF Jack. Master, without this the conjurer 
could do nothing; and so long as this light lasts, so 
long doth his art endure, and this being out, then 
doth his art decay. 



62 OLD WIVES' TALE 

EuM. Why, then, Jack, I will soon put out this 
light. 

G. OF Jack. Ay, master, how? 

EuM. Why, with a stone I'll break the glass, 
and then blow it out. 

G. OF Jack. No, master, you may as soon break 
the smith's anvil as this little vial; nor the biggest 
blast that ever Boreas blew cannot blow out this 
little light; but she that is neither maid, wife, nor 
widow. Master, wind this horn, and see what will 
happen. [Gives horn.] 

[As Eumenides winds the horn. Jack does the 
magic of Sacrapant with his wand. Enter Venelia, 
who breaks the glass, blows out the light and then 
goes out.] 

So, master, how like you this? This is she that 
ran madding in the woods, his betrothed love that 
keeps the cross; and now, this light being out, all 
are restored to their former liberty: and now, mas- 
ter, to the lady that you have so long looked for. 

[The Ghost of Jack draws the cell curtain, and 
discovers Delia sitting asleep. Eumenides kisses her 
thrice.] 

EuM. [Kneeling.] God speed, fair maid, sit- 
ting alone, — there is once; God speed, fair maid, — 
there is twice ; God speed, fair maid, — that is thrice. 

Del. [Awaking.] Not so, good sir, for you are 
by. 

G. OF Jack. Enough, master, she hath spoke; 
now I will leave her with you. [He goes out, cell.] 



OLD WIVES' TALE 63 

EuM. [Arising.] Thou fairest flower of these 
western parts, 
Whose beauty so reflecteth in my sight 
As doth a crystal mirror in the sun; 
For thy sweet sake I have crossed the frozen Rhine ; 
Leaving fair Po, I sailed up Danuby, 
As far as Saba, whose enhancing streams 
Cut twixt the Tartars and the Russians : 
These have I crossed for thee, fair Delia: 
Then grant me that which I have sued for long. 

Del. [Arising.'] Thou gentle knight, whose 
fortune is so good 
To find me out and set my brothers free. 
My faith, my heart, my hand I give to thee. [Both 
advance.] 

EuM. Thanks, gentle madam: but here comes 
Jack; thank him, for he is the best friend that we 
have. 

[Re-enter the Ghost of Jack, with Sacrapant's 
head in his hand.] 
How now. Jack! what hast thou there? 

G. OF Jack. Marry, master, the head of the 
conjurer. 

EuM. Why, Jack, that is impossible; he was a 
young man. 

G. OF Jack. Ah, master, so he deceived them that 
beheld him ! but he was a miserable, old, and crooked 
man, though to each man's eye he seemed young and 
fresh; for, master, this conjurer took the shape of 
the old man that kept the cross, and that old man 



64 OLD WIVES' TALE 

was in the likeness of the conjurer. But now, mas- 
ter, wind your horn. 

[Eumenides winds his horn. Enter, fireplace, 
Venelia, the Two Brothers, and Erestus.] 

EuM. Welcome, Erestus ! welcome, fair Venelia ! 
Welcome, Thelea and Calypha both ! 
Now have I her that I so long have sought. 
So saith fair Delia, if we have your consent. 

First Bro. Valiant Eumenides, thou well de- 
serv'st 
To have our favours; so let us rejoice 
That by thy means we are at liberty: 
Here may we joy each in the other's sight. 
And this fair lady have her wandering knight. 

G. OF Jack. So, master, now ye think you have 
done; but I must have a saying to you: you know 
you and I were partners, I to have half in all you 
got. 

EuM. Why, so thou shalt. Jack. 

G. OF Jack. Why, then, master, draw your 
sword, part your lady, let me have half of her 
presently. 

EuM. Why, I hope, Jack, thou dost but jest: I 
promised thee half I got, but not half my lady. 

G. OF Jack. But what else, master? have you 
not gotten her? therefore divide her straight, for I 
will have half; there is no remedy. 

EuM. Well, ere I will falsify my word unto my 
friend, take her all : here. Jack, I'll give her thee. 

G. OF Jack. Nay, neither more nor less, mas- 



OLD WIVES' TALE 65 

ter, but even just half. 

EuM. Before I will falsify my faith unto my 
friend, I will divide her : Jack, thou shalt have half. 

First Bro. Be not so cruel unto our sister, gen- 
tle knight. 

Second Bro. O, spare fair Delia! she deserves 
no death. 

EuM. Content yourselves ; my word is passed to 
him. — Therefore prepare thyself, Delia, for thou 
must die. 

Del. Then farewell, world! adieu, Eumenides! 

[Eumenides ojfers to strike, and the Ghost of 
Jack stays him.l 

G. OF Jack. Stay, master ; it is sufficient I have 
tried your constancy. Do you now remember since 
you paid for the burying of a poor fellow? 

EuM. Ay, very well. Jack. 

G. OF Jack. Then, master, thank that good deed 
for this good turn [I go to my grave] : and so God 
be with you all! [Disappears behind cell curtain.^ 

EuM. Jack, what, art thou gone? then farewell, 
Jack!— 
Come, brothers, and my beauteous Delia, 
Erestus, and thy dear Venelia, 
We will to Thessaly with joyful hearts. 

All. Agreed: we follow thee and Delia. 

[They all go out, except Frolic, Fantastic, and 
Madge.] 

Fan. What, gammer, asleep? 

Madge. By the mass, son, 'tis almost day; and 



66 OLD WIVES' TALE 

my windows shut at the cock's-crow. 

Fro. Do you hear, gammer? methinks this Jack 
bore a great sway amongst them. 

Madge. O, man, this was the ghost of the poor 
man that they kept such a coil to bury; and that 
makes him to help the wandering knight so much. 
But come, let us in: we will have a cup of ale and 
a toast this morning, and so depart. 

[Enter Clunch and Antic, returning after their 
night's sleep. They take their places to watch the 
closing fairy dance. '\ 

Fan. Then you have made an end of your tale, 
gammer ? 

Madge. Yes, faith: when this was done, I took 
a piece of bread and cheese, and came my way ; and 
so shall you have, too, before you go, to your break- 
fast. [They go out.] 

[Song without. Charm me asleep and Fairy dance. 
This time they vanish by the fireplace and the well 
as Epilogue enters, right, in severe scholastic garb. 
They close the curtains behind them and Epilogue, 
left along upon the stage, repeats the following.] 
[Now, gentles all, it is the early dawn 
When fairies leave the midnight fields and sports 
Tempered to mortal minds, and wind their way 
Home to the distant hills of Fairyland. 
I come a mortal breaking on their spell 
To ask your graces' favor. Did we well 
To bring you back this wandering Old Wives' Tale, 
Or did we ill? However that may be. 



OLD WIVES' TALE 67 

We hope the Old Wife brought a pleasant hour. 
If not, may hours of happiness to come 
Atone for one of sadness. So, farewell !] 

[He goes out.'\ 



APPENDICES 



SKETCH OF PEELe's LIFE 



George Peele was one of the group of University 
wits (John Lyly, Thomas Lodge, George Peele, 
Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashe) who exerted 
so potent an influence upon Elizabethan drama just 
prior to Shakespeare. He was born in 1558. His 
early education was obtained at the Grammar School 
connected with Christ's Hospital, of which his fa- 
ther, James Peele, was clerk. Peele was an Oxford 
man, student at Pembroke and Christ Church, re- 
ceiving his B.A. in 1577, his M.A. in 1579. While 
a member of the University he had already made so 
striking a reputation as poet, scholar, and dramatist, 
that in 1583, after a three years' residence in London, 
he was called back to Oxford to assist in the prepa- 
ration of a dramatic entertainment for the reception 
at his college of the Polish prince palatine, Albertus 
Alasco. His life leaves nothing to boast of apart' 
from his writings. A good marriage, financially at 
least, was of no assistance to him, as the property 
soon vanished. He was dissolute, living a miserable 
existence in squalor and depravity. He died in 1598, 
09 



70 APPENDICES 

barely forty years old. The extant plays credited 
to him are The Arraignment of Paris, The Old 
Wives' Tale, Edward I, The Love of King David 
and Fair Bethsabe, and The Battle of Alcazar. In 
contrast to the sordidness and failure of his life 
stands the dramatic output of the man and the lit- 
erary ideals which inspired him. Professor Gum- 
mere, writing in Gayley's Representative English 
Comedies, says of him: "He was an artist in words, 
and he had the gift of humor." And Professor 
George P. Baker's comment in the Ca?nbridge His- 
tory of English Literature elaborates this thought 
when he says that Peele had **an exquisite feeling 
for the musical value of words," and further remarks 
that in some of his lines is revealed ''something of 
that peculiar ability which reached its full develop- 
ment in the mature Shakespeare — that power of 
flashing before us in a line or two something defini- 
tive both as a picture and in beauty of phrase." 

II 

THE FAIRY STORIES IN "tHE OLD WIVES' TALe" 

In constructing his play Peele made use of four 
principal tales, Childe Roland, The Sleeping Beauty, 
Jack, the Giant Killer, and The Three Heads of the 
Well. In addition, he inserted details common to 
many folk-tales and of use in increasing the impres- 
sion which he desired to make. He seems to have 



APPENDICES 71 

felt that the audience must be returned to their 
childhood by as many paths as possible. The Childe 
Roland story is that of the chief quest of the two 
brothers. In it, as here told, Erestus takes the place 
of Merlin. The sleeping beauty story is that of the 
quest of Eumenides. With it is bound up that of 
Jack, the Giant Killer, who assists Eumenides by 
slaying Sacrapant. The daughters of Lampriscus 
are the heroines of Peek's version of The Three 
Heads of the Well. Some of the subordinate themes 
are that of the Life Index in the light whose extinc- 
tion meant Sacrapant' s death; the Thankful Dead, 
as a motive for Jack's aid to Eumenides; and the 
Fee-fo-fum refrain so often spoken by giants and 
ogres in the old tales. 

Mr. Joseph Jacobs, in his English Fairy Stories, 
has traced some of these connections. His notes are 
worth quoting, not only for the information given 
about the fairy tales in which we are interested, but 
because of his antiquarian estimate of the play, which 
is so like that of many critics who are without his 
knowledge. In his notes upon Childe Roland oc- 
curs the following sentence : "That some such story 
was current in England in Shakespeare's time is 
proved by that curious melange of nursery tales, 
Peele's Old Wives' Tale." In his notes upon Jack, 
the Giant Killer, he refers to that "Curious play of 
Peele's, The Old Wives' Tale, in which one of the 
characters is the ghost of Jack." As Professor Gum- 
mere remarks, there is an abundant field for scholarly 



72 APPENDICES 

investigation in tracing the tales which Peele has 
used and their affiliations. 



Ill 

THE MUSIC USED IN THE MIDDLEBURY PRODUCTION 

It may be of value to state in the briefest fashion 
the adaptations made use of in presenting the music 
of the play. Mrs. Maude S. Howard, now of the 
music department of Lincoln Memorial University, 
who had charge of the music, has kindly furnished 
the following statement: 

1. The Fairy Ring and Whenas the Rye. 

Adapted to a Glee written by John Parry, 
"Come, Fairies, Trip It On the Grass." 
The recurring phrase, "With a ho, ho, ho, 
ho," added to both songs. 

2. Mad Maid's Song. 

Adapted to a Ballet for five voices, "All 
Ye Woods and Trees and Bowers," writ- 
ten by Henry Lahee. The first move- 
ment only used and sung in unison. 

3. All Ye That Lovely Lovers Be. 

Adapted to the Chorus of "The Chough 
and Crow to Roost Are Gone," written 



APPENDICES 73 

by Sir Henry R. Bishop. The words of 
the chorus of original song added to tlje 
verse of "All ye," etc. Sung in three 
parts. 

4. Spread, Table, Spread. 

Adapted to second movement of "All Ye 
Woods and Trees and Flowers," by Mr. 
Lahee. Sung in thirds and sixths. 

5. Gently Dip, But Not Too Deep. 

Adapted to the first five phrases of "The 
Chough and Crow to Roost Have Gone," 
by Sir Henry Bishop. Sung in three parts. 

6. Charm Me Asleep. 

Music written by Maude Stevens Howard 
and patterned after an old madrigal in 
two parts. 

All songs were accompanied by two clarinets and 
one flute, the air being played by one clarinet and 
flute, the second part played by the second clarmet. 
In the three songs the flute played the air and the 
two clarinets played the second and third parts. 



74 APPENDICES 

IV 

THE MAD maid's SONG, BY ROBERT HERRICK 

Good morrow to the day so fair; 

Good morning, sir, to you; 
Good morrow to mine own torn hair 

Bedabbled with the dew. 

Good morning to this primrose, too ; 

Good morrow to each maid 
That will with flowxrs the tomb bestrew 

Wherein my love is laid. 

Ah ! woe is me, woe, woe is me, 

Alack and welladay! 
For pity, Sir, find out that bee 

Which bore my love away. 

I'll seek him in j^our bonnet brave, 

I'll seek him in your eyes; 
Nay, now I think t'have made his grave 

r th' bed of strawberries. 

I'll seek him there; I know, ere this, 
The cold, cold earth doth shake him; 

But I will go, or send a kiss 
By you. Sir, to awake him. 



APPENDICES 75 

Pray hurt him not; though he be dead, 
He knows well who do love him, 

And who with green turfs reare his head, 
And who do rudely move him. 

He's soft and tender! pray take heed! 

With bands of cowslips bind him, 
And bring him home : — but 'tis decreed 

That I shall never find him. 



